Friday, July 27, 2007

This is a post that I wrote back on March 25th of this year. I'm not sure why I never transferred it from my drafts list. I decided to post it now just because I took the time to write it and even if it's not a current conversation, it was an issue that was important to me.

--------------------------------You know, I was just over at BFP's site reading where she posted a small sample of the hate-mail that she receives. "Loved White One" sent her a message explaining that the cause of her financial problems. For all of you other folks who may be experiencing a few economic difficulties, here's a little piece of her advice that maybe you could benefit from:

"I’ve got another suggestion: Perhaps you are sad, depressed, and angry because you are lunging blindly through life without God and his only son, Jesus Christ. Perhaps what you see as 'white privilege' is actually God bestowing upon his adherents the rewards of faith."

Now if someone reading this sees some logic in this, please show me because I know plenty of people who are believers in "God and his only son, Jesus Christ". Yet, they are even more miserable and angry and dirt-poor than many of the atheists that I know. Are they just not believing enough and God is punishing them? I'm being sarcastic here, of course. Loved White One's notion is just ridiculous and counter to the actual messages that "God and his only son, Jesus Christ" commanded his believers to follow. God does not reward people by creating a system that is responsible for the oppression of marginalized groups throughout this country. That is man's doing. God has nothing to do with Loved White One's claims. Anyway, that person was just the regular run o' the mill religious lunatic. However, what was even more entertaining was the e-mail from Luckynkl.

Now you may be unfamiliar with this...hmm, what's the right word to describe someone like her? Let's just say she suffers from Rectal-Cranial Inversion Syndrome. I make it a point to stay away from armchair diagnoses but this is as clear a case as could ever be presented, so I'm pretty comfortable with my observation. Apparently, I am not the only one who has reached a similar conclusion about this waste of protein that is Luckynkl. A couple of folks on a LiveJournal thread got a good laugh out of her claim that female humans are parthogenetic. Yeah, that's right. Luckynkl claimed that men have successfully fooled us into thinking that human egg cells must be fertilized in order to make a baby. In other words, the next time you're ovulating, you'd better watch out because even if no sperm ever comes in contact with your eggs, it could just start developing into a baby. Perhaps someone should ask her where human offspring get those other 23 chromosomes needed to bring the total number up to the 46 that are found in most human beings on the face of the earth (people who are intersexed may have more or fewer chromosomes but are not cases of parthenogenesis). Anyway, that's just one of her finer moments. She's usually busy proving to the world that she's even more ignorant than the parthogenetic claims reveal.

Now, I know Nubian has discussed how we (women of color) should not devote our energy to engaging in discussion with these pathetic folks (they would have us believe it's just a coincidence that they are all white, American, self-professed "radfem" women) who like to visit our blogs and tell us about how awful we are for having the audacity to call ourselves ____ women. You can fill that blank with the word "Puerto Rican" or "Native American" or "Chinese" or "Jewish". And I think that Nubian has a good point. Those conversations can really wear you down sometimes.

However, sometimes, it's a helluva lot of fun to point at the monkeys and laugh. And that's just what these people are to me: a bunch of poop-flinging monkeys. Heart/Cheryl, Chasing Moksha, Luckynkl, Stormy, AmazonRage...There arguments and tactics are all the same. And before them, there were others just like them. Remember Nio and her crew of most-oppressed-in-the-world white women? Sometimes I wonder if there isn't a factory somewhere out there just pressing out white American women genetically imprinted to seek out women of color that they can convince to feel sorry for them and worship them. I wonder if maybe I could call them up and tell them it's time to update their systems because interacting with them is like talking to that old computer game Eliza.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

This case is both interesting and tragic, although much more of the latter than the former. A seven year old girl reported being raped repeatedly by one of her relatives. The judge ruled that the charges had to be dismissed because the suspects right to a speedy trial had been violated due to numerous delays. The delays occurred because of language difficulties. The suspect speaks some English but his first language is Vai, which, according to the article, only has about 100,000 speakers in the entire world. Unfortunately, even though the state determined that the suspect needed a Vai interpreter in order to understand the proceedings, for a period of almost three years, the courts were unable to produce some one qualified to do that. So, as I said, the judge dismissed the charges against the person.

On the one hand, I think that the state really did need to provide a Vai translator here. If you can't really understand what the suspect is saying and the suspect can't even effectively express himself or understand exactly what's going on, then you can't possibly provide the sort of fair trial that people are supposed to be entitled to here in the USA.

However, I am none too comfortable with the fact that this little girl was raped and no one will be punished for doing it. I have to wonder how much effort the state would put into finding a proper interpreter if the victim hadn't been a little black girl. What if the girl hadn't come from a family of African immigrants? What if she was white with blonde hair and blue eyes?

I'm not saying the state didn't try because it's evident that they did put a good bit of effort into finding an interpreter, but the fact that the Washington Post was able to find several of them in one day leads me to believe that the state could have done much more. I mean, all the newspaper did was contact the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) and they were able to find an available Vai interpreter in the same city as the trial was to take place.

Why didn't the state contact NAJIT? I mean, I typed "judiciary interpreters" into Yahoo's search engine and NAJIT was the second entry. I Googled it and NAJIT was the first entry. While the state was busy supposedly contacting the courts in 47 different states, why--in three years--did no one even bother to contact them. It's not like it's a new organization. They've been around since 1978. This debacle could have been avoided with a fraction of the effort the state claims it expended.

The state acted completely incompetent in this case, but you know what? I think that this situation proves an even bigger point: It is absolutely shameful how the US government refuses to make an effort to promote multilingual education in the schools. We are only fooling ourselves if we (US citizens) think that our children will be able to succeed and compete for jobs in this new century without being able to speak more than one language.

Today I had an experience in Wal-Mart that really brought this home for me. I think I'm going to write a separate post about it now.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Okay, so first there was Texas. Now it looks like Missouri will be second on my list of states to avoid like the plague. It seems that those lovable guys on the police force have, for the second time this year, decided to harassed and mistreated a pregnant woman of color. Yvette Hayes was forced to lie on the asphalt next to a highway on her stomach even after she told them that she was five months pregnant.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Today is my daughter's birthday! She's really stoked about spending the entire day with me and her daddy hanging out together, watching movies. I just know that she would love it if a few folks left her a birthday message on her blog. She's also written a new post that I like a whole lot. It's called

It made me a little bit sad to read it because it mentions her memory of when my youngest step-sister had to leave home because she was gay. She's never even talked about it with me. I didn't know that she knew for sure that this was why my sister left. Anyway, it seems as if she's turning into quite the little activist around here. She's definitely challenging The German's feelings about issues of sexuality in ways that even I hadn't been able to accomplish. That girl is my heroine!

I feel sorry that most of you people are not lucky enough to live in a place as cool as New Orleans. Yeah, that so-and-so Katrina kicked our arses from here to next year, but I promise you, there is no other place in this country (and likely, the whole world too) that a person could be fortunate enough to come from. Seriously folks, where else can you get the cuisine of Paris, the architecture of Spain, and the religious traditions of the Caribbean, all in one place? Where else will you find Jazz music as good as what can be found in the average, water-soaked, hole-in-the-wall joint of New Orleans?

And while we're at it, let's clear something up. I'm talking about the second part of our name. Please, do not pronounce it as: "New awr-leenz" or "Newawr-lee-uh nz". The one and only way it should be said is: "New awr-luh nz". Well, if you're here in the city, you will probably hear it pronounced as "N'awlins" because we prefer to use the "r" sound only in words where there are no "r"'s present (e.g. oil, boil, toilet). Don't worry if this rule makes no sense to you. It's more of an inside joke for those who have actually lived here for a period of time.

This morning I was slumming on MySpace and I got a message from one of my favorite local Jazz musicians, a cat named Sam Williams. Big Sam and I go way back. I don't know if I first met him through my little brother or from watching him play around town. I'm pretty sure he used to play in the Li'l Stooges Brass Band with my brother for a while.

He's one of the dedicated musicians that came back after the storm. I'm sure that wasn't an easy decision to make. After all, Sam could easily have relocated to some place else and continued making music. Right now he's touring in Europe but I hope he'll be coming back soon. Meanwhile, I think anyone who likes Jazz should check out his page at

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Kactus has a post up at Super Babymama called "Okay, it's too hot to blog, so let's chat" where she asks people about how they came up with their usernames and blog names. I decided to get in on the action and make a post about mine. So, here ya' go!

bint=girl/daughteral-shamsa=the sun

bintalshamsa="daughter of the sun" or "sun-girl"

Well, it's actually a little more complicated than that. Like many languages, other than English, Arabic words are gendered. They are either muwanath (feminine) or muthaker (masculine). The Arabic word for "sun" is normally masculine so, when you transliterate it into English, you'd usually spell it as "shams". However, you can change a word that is usually masculine into a feminine version by adding a letter called "taa' marbuta". "taa' marbuta" means a letter "t" that has been tied-up. When taamarbuta is at the end of a word, it is pronounced kind of like "ah!" By adding the "a" on the end of "shamsa", I gave it a feminine ending making its meaning more like "daughter of the feminine sun".

I was looking for a word that I felt reflected my personality. I think of myself as the sort of person who always tries to liven up the room no matter where I go. I like seeing people interacting with each other. I see it as a bit of a shame that people can be sitting right next to each other and never even say hello to each other. The German says I have a sunny personality, so I guess that's where I got the idea to use sun imagery. I also wanted to reflect womanhood which is why I changed the gender on the "sun" part of it.

I named my blog "My Private Casbah" because I wanted it to be a place where I could just be me and express my thoughts without having to worry about what my family thinks, what my (old) religion teaches, etcetera. I wanted it to be my fortress against the world. Writing helps me to keep my stress levels manageable. I can speak my mind without being interrupted. I can focus on what's important to me. It's my fortress.

Friday, July 13, 2007

I wrote the paragraphs below a day or so after my procedure. I didn't post it because it was just too hard to talk about anything more about it. I'm about to write a post with some updates that occurred since the endoscopy.--------------------------------------------------------------------------Well that was certainly a bit uncomfortable but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I stayed up until around 2 a.m. so that I'd be pretty tired when I woke up because I've found that feeling sleepy trumps feeling stressed out.

As usual, I got a totally amazing nurse. I know some folks don't buy into it but I really do think there's something extra lucky about being Irish. I have yet, in all my years of having lupus and cancer, had a mean nurse assigned to my care. This one was pretty and bubbly and she's been a nurse for 27 years. As she recorded my vital signs, she and I had a nice conversation that could just as well have taken place over a cup of tea in my living room.

She said that one of the most important things that a nurse can do is try to put herself in the shoes of the person having the procedure. She says that you should treat every patient as if it were your own mother lying on the bed in front of you. It seems as if she really applies that principle too, because I couldn't have asked for a more reassuring person to have in front of me.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Dang racists! I was going about my day, just napping and hanging out with the family when we received a call from a number that I didn't recognize. Since The German and I really don't receive many calls for us, I figured it was someone for my daughter. Anyway, I pick up the phone and the person asks to speak to The German. Since he was asleep, I asked them who they were and what it was pertaining to so that I could decide whether it was something I needed to wake him up for. Instead of telling me what the matter was concerning, the guy starts asking me who I was and since I'm not in the habit of telling random strangers my personal information, I responded by telling them that I'm the person whose home they called.

The man asks me if I was ____ (the name of one of our extended family's friends) and I told him that I am not that person but I am The German's wife. So then, the man starts asking me if I know how to get in touch with our friend____ because they are looking to collect a debt from them. I got really aggravated and I told the guy that his business was with____ , not with us and I have no information about that person to give them. At that, he starts demanding that I put The German on the phone and that he'll keep calling until we tell them how to get in touch with____. I told him that now he definitely wasn't going to speak to The German today or any day, for that matter and I hung up the phone.

Next, the guy calls my house again asking me if I'm going to put The German on the phone now. Again, I told him that it just wasn't going to happen and he starts making his demands again. Suddenly the guy's partner takes the phone from him and threatens to harass us unless we help them. She says, if we don't tell us where____ might be reached, then she's going to show up at_______(an address that's a bit like mine but certainly not mine) with the constable and have me arrested for obstruction of justice. I already know that I have no legal responsibility to help these jerks and, secondly, they don't even know our address, so I told them that if they think that's where we live and they believe they can get me arrested, then I guess I'll see them when they get here.

They were getting pretty irate and practically yelling into the phone, both of them at once, demanding that I give them information about____. I started realizing that this is probably how they got our phone number and the address that they thought was ours. I'm figuring that they harassed some one else and that person gave them our number to get the jerks off their back. It's understandable. They are probably pretty at intimidating the average person. Instead of caving in, I laughed and told them that they were absolutely hilarious. The guy keeps threatening to come over to my house--never mind the fact that my actual address is inside of an apartment complex with over six hundred units so even if they wandered through my neighborhood, they'd never find my flat.

The male jerk says to me "Well, you must not care about going to jail but if they have to come down there,____ and The German go to jail because we're going to have them arrested too. I bet you care about that!" to which I said

"Not particularly, no."

Then the female jerk says "Sounds like we must be talking to a nigger!" Well, it was all down hill from there.

I paused and said, "Wait? Was I supposed to get upset about you saying that? All it shows is how trashy you are and that you obviously didn't receive any decent home training."

She screams back "Look, you nigger, put The German on the phone! We don't need to talk to any of you niggers!"

I must admit that I was quite pissed off but I was determined to keep my cool. "You know, this call is really making my day! I feel like I'm talking to the last of the Dodo birds. I'd almost quite forgotten that there were people this ignorant still on the planet." They hung up.

I sat there thinking about it for a second and then I called back the cell phone number that had shown up on my telephone. The guy picked up the phone and said "Hello?"

From me: "Oh, it's just me again. I was hoping that your wife would pick up the phone so that she could make me laugh again and I could let everyone else hear what trashy racists sound like. Besides, I figure, as long as you're on the phone with me, you can't use this phone to harass other people who have no business with your company."

At that point the guy calls me a bunch of other racist names, tells me not to call there any more and disconnects. I hang up the phone and couldn't help but smile at the idea of the annoying jerk who called me first, telling me not to call him any more. But you know what? I'm still pretty angry.

The German woke up around this time. A few minutes later, my mother-in-law called. It turns out that the two jerks had already gone down to her house and tried to browbeat her into helping them find____. That infuriated me. My mother-in-law and partner are white and I am a woman of color. Yes, we are an inter-racial relationship and they are free to be displeased by the fact that they had to go through me, a person of color, to get to The German. Even though I'm sure they weren't very pleased with the fact that they couldn't get a rise out of me and I'm proud that I didn't lose my cool, it still angers me that this incident even occurred.

VanGoghGirl heard bits and pieces of it because her nosey little ears couldn't stop trying to listen in to my half of the conversation. Fortunately, she didn't actually hear the jerks ranting at me from the other end but she still asked me about it afterwards.

I tried to tell her that some people say that kind of stuff when they don't think they're smart enough to find some better way of getting their point across. The German said that only people who don't feel good about themselves talk like that because if you feel good about who you are, then you won't feel the need to try to make other people feel bad too.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to just cool off and forget about it right now but it's on my mind and I can't seem to let it go just yet.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Tomorrow, I'll be adding to the long list of medical procedures I've experienced. The gastro-enterologist I saw a couple of weeks ago is going to perform an upper GI endoscopy on me in the morning and I'm really nervous about it.

The doctor said I'll only be there for a few hours. They'll do the procedure, monitor me for awhile and then release me. It doesn't sound too major. After all, they aren't even anesthetizing me completely. Instead they're just going to sedate me to take the edge off so that I can relax while they stick the tube down my throat and into my stomach. Still, I'm feeling anxious.

The nurse gave me a brochure that explains exactly what they're going to do. I've been reading it over and over again all evening.

----------------------------------------------------------During the Procedure

You lie on the endoscopy table.

Your throat may be numbed with a spray or gargle. You are given a sedating (relaxing) medication through an intravenous (IV) line.

You swallow the endoscope. This is thinner than most pieces of food that you swallow. It will not affect your breathing. The medication helps keep you from gagging.

Air is inserted to expand your GI tract. This air can make you burp.

The endoscope carries images of your upper GI tract to a video screen. If you are awake, you may be able to look at the images. Prints of the video images can be taken. These prints are stored as a record of your exam.

After the procedure is done, you rest for a time. An adult must drive you home.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I can do this, right? I always try to go into each procedure with the determination to be as brave as I can. After all, I've had much more dangerous things done to me, right? It's just so invasive. I'm trying to keep telling myself that this is not something that is being done against my will. If I want to, I can reschedule the endoscopy for another date. This is my choice. It's something the doctor is doing in order to help me. After it is over, I will be glad that I had it done promptly. This temporary discomfort will result in long-term benefits because it will help my doctors determine how best to treat me.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

My period is M.I.A. I wonder if it has anything to do with whatever has caused my stomach problems. I know zip about eating disorders but I do remember that when my aunt was struggling with anorexia and she was exercising constantly, she lost a lot of weight and eventually her period stopped coming for awhile. Of course, this is all just guessing.

About a week ago, it seemed as if it were about to start--I was feeling the usual anemia-related fatigue and my fingertips were decidedly blue--but it never came. I suppose I'll have to tell my doctor about this on Tuesday. What a pain!

About Me

Above all else, I am proof that having an incurable cancer doesn't mean that your life is over. I am also the mother of a gifted child who has been an artist since she was born. We live in the southern part of the beautiful state of Louisiana. I'm a biology student on hiatus as I heal from treatment. Besides English, I can speak Arabic, a bit of French and Spanish and nothing more than a few phrases in German but I'm working on it. I love cats and plants even though I only have 2 of each. Some of my friends call me Tulip. You're free to do the same.